Please respect each authors’ and poets’ copyright. The rights remain with the writers. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from each of the poems author’s is strictly prohibited and violates copyright laws in the country you are reading this work in as well as in the country you are trying to re-publish this work in. – Aurora Jean Alexander

Weariness overcame me. Darkness spiraled up from the pit of my stomach, engulfing me, pulling me under, surrounding me. I struggled against it, trying to breath in the suffocating murk, but, like a hypnotic spell, I could not resist the tugging blackness encroaching on my thoughts. Sleep leapt upon me, like a tigress with claws bared, sinking them into my flesh, penetrating deeply, inescapable.

Fear crashed in on me; a thousand boulders tumbling on my body from out of the dingy night sticking to me, pounding over me without mercy and without ceasing, yet I did not fall. There was no pain, only fear devouring me in the darkness. Echoes of thought whispered from the ebon vastness around me; voices once so bright, filled with life, now empty, hollow, soundless.

What happened to the life that was inside me? Where did my vibrancy go? Try as I might, I could not draw a single breath and the sensation of existing without it was terrifying. Brackish water sloshed around my feet, pouring in from the edges of the darkness, splashing upwards in a slow, inescapable progression; yet my feet felt nailed to the place where I stood. Unable to run, I searched the emptiness around me, horrified to watch the slogging water sucking upward around me, encasing me in icy coldness.

Where was the Light? Wasn’t there a Tunnel of Light? What happened to all the preaching and teaching and reaching from Heaven? Shadows began to move in the deep darkness, slinking towards me in a haze that filled me with dread. Sounds like ravenous animals gnawing bones began to filter through to me. Screeches and cackles more horrendous in sound than any tale from the crypt I had ever heard. Insidious laughter mocked my struggles as I fought to escape the unrelenting icy embalmment closing around me.

Then all went silent as a single voice spoke from the darkness staining itself crimson over my head. I listened, aghast at the familiarity of the tone and inflection. It was my own voice. It was me, speaking out of the past to haunt my own soul and as I listened, bitter tears slipped down my pallid cheeks, falling into the freezing water encircling my chest, my neck, sloshing upward over my chin, my nose, consuming me.

“I have everything I could ever want or need. I’ve got more money than I know what to do with, more influence than I know how to use, and more friends than I can count. ……………
What do I need God for?”

In my mountainous castle well hidden away
There’s my beast getting restless for lightness of day
And the blood that I seek must be innocent, sweet,
So delight feeds the brain and my rapture’s complete.

How I long that the travelers wandering by
Be so true that they capture my sensitive eye.
How I long that they tarry so I’ll have a bite
Of the glory of goodness lost deep in the night.

Ah, look! There’s a traveler coming toward me,
To my mountainous castle all lost by the sea,
To the doom that awaits him. His way seems so sure
With a heart pumping love and deliciously pure.

He is knocking. I’ll open the door to his death.
He is breathing but soon he will not take a breath.
Then at the table aged wine I may taste
With his flesh, raw and bloody–there’s no time to waste.

But wait! My hand moves but it can’t free the door.
The traveler turns. He won’t knock anymore.
Have I grown out so ghostly my body has gone?
Have I nothing but fantasies I can put on?

October 10, 2017

1st Day of the 3rd Halloween Poem Contest, here on ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’.

It has started!

Every author and poet are invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture (and, if possible, a link to their website and/or blog).

There are a few rules to follow:

Your poem needs a Halloween theme.

Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.

Your poem has to be delivered to my email address until Halloween, October 31, 2015, 9 pm Central Standard Time.

Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture (and, if possible, link).

Please, deliver your poem and your picture to my email address within this time frame, neither earlier, nor later. Poems arriving outside these 3 weeks will be disqualified. (The poets who had sent me their entries already, please re-send, otherwise I cannot accept them. Thank you for your understanding)

Every author and poet are invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture (and, if possible, a link to their website and/or blog).

There are a few rules to follow:

Your poem needs a Halloween theme.

Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.

Your poem has to be delivered to my email address until Halloween, October 31, 2015, 9 pm Central Standard Time.

Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture (and, if possible, link).

September 11, 2001, the day of the worst terrorist attacks the U.S. had to face in its history. Annually we remember the victims and their families; we keep them in our thoughts and prayers.

During the September 11 attacks in 2001, 2,996 people were killed and more than 6,000 others wounded. These immediate deaths included 265 on the four planes (including the 19 terrorists), 2,606 in the World Trade Center and the surrounding area, and 125 at the Pentagon. (Source: Wikipedia)

I think it’s important we don’t forget this day, the ones who suffered, the ones who had to fight with the loss, with despair, and with illness. It was a dark day – and still: ‘UNITED WE STAND.’ Americans proudly helped, supported, comforted and still remember. It is important we never forget how to STAND UNITED!

Today, September 11, 2017, I would like to remember the ones who helped, the ones who were there, risking their lives for others, and in far too many cases, paid the highest price in the line of duty!
Many more, exposed to toxic dust and other hazards, have succumbed to illnesses related to their rescue and recovery efforts over the years. On Thursday, September 7, 2017, the FDNY added 32 more names to the World Trade Center Memorial Wall.

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Thank you, helpers, thank you, supporters!

Thank you for your sacrifice, for your help, for giving everything you had and paying the one price we never can give back to you.

Thank you, for your belief in helping each one of us, no matter where no matter what.